Poster Child for Mayhem
by Madame Tango
Summary: Freya McTavish is a journalist from a country town in South Western Queensland. Her love life has gone pearshape and her paper could go belly up and the only person she has to confide in is a poster of the Norse God of Mischief!
1. Chapter 1

Poster-child for Mayhem

In the beginning!

You can always tell how bad a break up has been by the number of Tim Tams it takes before you either a) hurl or b) start to feel better.

While ice-cream is the normal accepted broken heart bandaid in most parts of the world, for an Aussie girl there is nothing that works better than chocolaty icing sandwiched between two chocolate biscuits and completely covered in chocolate - unless it's the ones with orange icing I loved those (shame they aren't making them anymore because I could do with a shipping-container load right now).

Anyway the fact that, two days after I walked in on Bryce doing the wild-thing with our receptionist in our small communal office, I'm currently using said Tim Tams to scoop ice-cream out of a large tub of chocolate Streets Blue Ribbon ice-cream is probably not a good sign.

It's my own fault; I should never have trusted my heart to the advertising manager of our small community newspaper. What journo in her right mind would date the advertising manager? And I'm editor – I'm supposed to be smarter than most. Mind you with just a cadet and a stringer photographer as my staff I'm probably not considered a real editor but never-the-less I've grown up in newspapers – I know the dangers. The problem with Bryce was that he had a smooth tongue, movie-star looks and showed the same passion and commitment to my newspaper as I did and that was intoxicating.

And it happened so gradually I didn't realise it was happening – both working late or going to the same functions, a brush of fingers, a cheeky smile and then one night one too many celebratory drinks at the local business awards and suddenly it was action stations in his car in the car park of the local golf club and a hole in one on the 18th green.

He was like that though – living on the edge – always a little dangerous. So I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that he would a) chase our bleached-blonde Barbie-cloned receptionist Alley and b) decide that his desk at 7.30pm at night (on council night) would be the perfect place for a tryst.

Look it's not like all advertising reps are self-centred ego maniacs – no that's just a stereotype that we journos cling to sometimes. I have quite a few friends in the industry who are brilliant, hardworking and live normal lives. But Bryce, Bryce was something else – a high-functioning sociopath with a need to push the limits whether it be driving his Porsche (who the hell has a Porsche and works at a two-bit community paper in a small country town just west of nowhere) just a little too fast or getting to know the new receptionist up close and personal at a time when your girlfriend is due back from council with the front page story so that the paper can finally go to bed for the week.

Yep I certainly know how to pick them right?

After what I can only describe as an excruciating day in the office yesterday with no one looking anyone in the eye and me employing vast amounts of "spray and wipe" to imaginary spots on my desk where the deed occurred Bryce and Alley have sped off in his "Porsche" to parts unknown. Why can't Porsche drivers ever just call their motor vehicle a car like the rest of us mere mortals!? Hopefully it will be a day or two in the hot Australian summer before they notice the prawn heads and shells (I don't know what you call them where you are – shrimps – crustaceans?) I taped securely in paper bags under their seats.

So now, sad git that I am, I'm not only scooping up ice-cream with Tim Tams but I'm looking for a new ad manager and a secretary and to cap it all off I'm telling all this, not to a human being, but to a movie poster of the Norse God of Mischief hanging on the wall of my loungeroom. Yeah I keep looking in the mirror for the word loser on my forehead too!


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 Glorious Intent

I cautiously crack open an eye and look at my surroundings – it is morning, but only just. There is a pounding in my head that won't go away and somewhere in the distance I can hear an alarm beeping incessantly but it all seems just a little too far away for me to bother.

I feel like I have the worst hang-over in the history of hangovers and yet I didn't touch a drop of alcohol. I did however consume enough chocolate, icecream and Tim Tams to put me in a diabetic coma for a week. And if the spinning room is anything to go by I'm obviously crashing down from a massive chocolate high.

Groaning , I venture to open the second eye and I realise I'm am slumped in the loungeroom of my 120 year-old weatherboard 'Queenslander' still fully clothed and drooling slightly on my new red leather lounge. Reaching up to rub sleep and smut out of my eye I clunk myself in the head with an icecream carton and realise my hand is still stuck in the now empty Blue Ribbon container. A drip of melted confectionary slides down my arm and hits me square in the left eye and it stings. Cursing I jump up suddenly – causing the chocolate hang-over to hit me with avengence.

As the room continues to hit high speeds on the spin cycle, I stumble towards the bathroom – passing the big poster of Loki on the way through.

"You are the monster we tell our children about!" I hear him monotone in my head and I shake my head (a big mistake in my current state). I throw him the same look I usually reserve for the editor of the local paid paper when he calls my newspaper "my little project". I garner the same reaction that I get from Warwick – pure silence – but that's to be expected he's a poster and it's only my oh so over active imagination giving him life. I grimace and push past the framed wall hanging into the brightly tiled space of my bathroom.

Looking in the mirror in the harsh light of dawn, I realise imagination or not - Loki's probably right.

My often uncontrollable curls have now completely taken over my head and are sticking out at strange angles all over my skull. They look like something Medusa would be proud of – and just as menacing. Not quite brown, not quite red – they have a copper tone in the harsh florescent lighting of the red, blue and yellow tiled space. Right now with my stomach doing the Macarena I'm regretting not going for the gentle water-inspired tones of most bathrooms. I turn on the tap and wet my hands and run watery fingers through my curls while I inspect my usually bright green eyes which have turned a little "frost-giant" red after my evening of chocolate therapy.

The alarm is still beeping dangerously from my bedroom and for the first time I focus on it properly and realise it's just on five and time for my morning run. Being a masochist and needing to get my mind clear – I head to my bedroom throw off yesterday's clothes and pull up my sweats before rummaging under the bed for my joggers. I find them, socks that have hopefully only had one outing since wash time and, mockingly, an unopen condom – now destined to stay that way for ever more.

I sit on the old-fashioned brass bed, untouched from last night but unmade from the night before, and put on my slightly garishly coloured shoes and try and take as many deep breaths as I can.

Grabbing a water-bottle from the fridge and rolling it vigorously over my still aching brow, I grab my keys from peg near the door, my ipod off the bench and step out into the new morning.

Saffron Walden, Queensland – population 11,523 – is still asleep for the most part. I live about two blocks back from the town centre in a quiet side street of old weatherboards, built up off the ground for the cool, with wide verandahs for living on during the summer.

My head pounds in time with my feet as I run down the imaginatively named Gum St (which is actually planted with Bottletrees just to add to the confusion) avoiding the dog shit on the old uneven concrete path as I go. My ipod is in my ears but I'm yet to turn it on enjoying the quiet instead.

Saffron Walden bears no resemblance to it's English-namesake. It's not an ancient market village although it is more than 150 years old which is pretty old for an Australian town and is a regional centre for the local farming community. Sitting just down off the highlands of Queensland, it is six hours from the coast and the capital. It has wide streets on the edge of the town area – a left over from the days of coaches and bullock drays. These are lined with bright orange lights marking the highways out of town. It is late enough in the morning that the lights have been turned off already but still dark enough to lose myself in the air of the new day.

I've always thought it was a joke by our homesick forefathers to name our western Queensland, often drought affected, town after a place of stones, cold and ancient history in Essex. Unlike the northern version it is November and even at 5.10am in the morning, I am already feeling the heat.

I run down into the main street which is not quite bustling with activity yet – although George at the newsagency has already opened up and is undoing his papers for the morning. I've known him most of my life – I even worked there as a kid. He wasn't too pleased when I left the daily (which he sells) for the freepaper (which he can't) but I still consider him a friend – I went to school with his daughter and spent a lot of time hanging out in the living space behind the business.

He waves as I run past – I don't slow down – the look in his eyes are enough. Not only am I loser but if George's sympathetic eyes are anything to go by – the whole town knows already. I always wonder why we need a newspaper in this town, the bush telegraph moves faster than the actual Saffron Times!

I keep my head down and run down the block heading out around the town through the local park which isn't as green as it should be thanks to the drought. I eventually get home just after 7am – throw myself in the shower and dress in casual jeans and a light shirt, put some make-up on, check that my frost-giant eyes are back to their natural green (not quite but they aren't so noticeable now)

It's Thursday, which in my world is Monday because I start work on the next edition – I love Monday's as much as most people and this is going to be harder than most.

I take a deep breath – I have to tough this out for my own peace of mind and for my paper. Losing the ad-manager could be a death-knell – we need money to operate and Bryce may have been a two-timing ass (not a good word to use and my mind goes back to seeing his perfectly toned bum in action in the office the other night) but he was a damned good salesman.

I blow a kiss to Loki on my wall – "Wish me luck mate!" I say as I pass him.

"I am Loki of Asgard and I am filled with glorious purpose," the poster calls to me in my head. I smile ruefully and look him in the eye.

"I am Freya McTavish of Saffron Walden, Queensland and since Bryce left town yesterday in his Porsche the chances of me being filled with anything glorious are zero to none!"


	3. Chapter 3

Trust My Rage

I strode purposefully out of my house, across the wide verandah and down the stairs, looking briefly at my four-wheel-drive in the driveway. Usually because it's Thursday I'd drive my car the block and a half to work – just in case I needed it. I usually spend most of my time out of the office today. I set the paper up and then I try to spend the rest of the day out on the road (and we have a lot of roads around here believe me). I love being out there with the people I grew up with, talking to them, taking pictures. I love being out on the kilometres and kilometres of roads around my town or just walking down town and chatting.

But not today – today I just want to hide away and try not to feel like an idiot. I wonder how many people knew about Bryce and the barbie doll? Knowing Saffy, I'm probably the last person to have any idea.

I squeeze down between the frangipanis and the side of my car, eyes down - I won't be leaving the office today, I hoping a hole will swallow me up before I even get to the office. There's so much to sort out and too many people I can't face (mmm that list was longer than my chocolate-binge shopping list yesterday afternoon).

My eyes stay down as I hustle through the warm morning air – it's still not quite 8am so Saffron is just starting to bubble. I pass a few people but I don't look up, I can't. Finally I get to our office – an office that has been my home for more than a decade and, until yesterday, a bit of a sanctuary.

I started here as a young cadet, working for the daily paper, it has plenty of great memories – some big parties in the downstairs foyer and lots of, let us say, more personal moments. Four years ago the big paper moved out to brand new state-of-the art premises out in an industrial estate thanks to a brand new multi-national owner. And we left this beautiful old Federation-style building for a bright new future with our ever expanding paper – too bad profit became more important than people and that new building soon became too big for our every shrinking, downsized staff. No need for people on-site when you can centralize things – nothing like having your ads put together by someone in another part of the world – aaah who needs local knowledge when you have technology for the right price.

When I found myself a victim of that downsizing a year or two ago, the last thing I expected was to be back here again. In fact I had my ticket to freedom baby, London! All the way. I was getting out of Saffy – heading to a new job and a new life.

But of course life actually doesn't always read the script and my dad's stroke two days before my plane flight, changed my course pretty quickly, as did months of rehab and working on the farm with my big brother Stewart. Suddenly I was stuck here again and with no job and no future. But this building rescued me and maybe I rescued it too. A local consortium wanted to start a new paper – a local weekly staffed with people who cared about the local area and they wanted to use the old building. And, unlike the daily which seemed to be employing younger and younger journos from further and further away, they wanted me. So here I am – back where I began and now, back to the beginning again, rebuilding.

I look down at my phone and check out the cheeky Norse good on the screen again (yesterday it held the image of some ad reptile who should not be named but I'm more comfortable with the God of Mischief now, I'm shattered to pieces – I've just been told I'm a Jotun in the world of the happy couples of the Aesir). Trust My Rage, he tells me. And I do and I open the door and face the day.


End file.
